Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United host FC Porto in the European Champions League on Tuesday in what is looking more and more like a defining moment of truth. At 2-1 down from the first leg of their first knockout round clash, United badly need a Champions League triumph to boost confidence among the ranks.

Real Madrid lost big in its 1-1 draw, and AC Milan and Werder Bremen maintained their leads on Sunday. In England, defending FA Cup champion Arsenal and rival Manchester United both advanced to the tournament’s semifinals. Madrid’s Ronaldo left the field with a tear in his left thigh muscle.

A 71st-minute strike from Siza Dlamini secured a 2-1 win for Golden Arrows in an exciting Premier Soccer League match against Dynamos at Giyani Stadium in Thohoyandou on Sunday. Arrows were first on the board after a deliberate build-up and Mlungisi Gumbi made no mistake with his 12th-minute goal.

Veteran striker Greg Nicol scored both South Africa’s goals to defeat Japan 2-1 in the men’s Olympic qualifying field hockey tournament in Madrid on Sunday. South Africa’s second win, which followed the 6-0 win over Poland on Friday, has put them in third place in Pool A with one match left to play, against Great Britain.

Although Glenn Hoddle’s name was linked on Sunday to the vacant South African soccer coaching post, the former England manager’s formal application is yet to arrive in South Africa. South African Sunday newspapers made much of the controversial side of Hoddle’s career.

Western Province duly completed a crushing innings and 186-run victory against Griqualand West in their Supersport Series Super Six match at Newlands on Sunday. As in the first innings, the Griquas batting imploded and the match was completed well before lunch on the final day.

Unseasonal heavy rainfall has turned the pitch for the first Test match between New Zealand and South Africa into a spin bowler’s paradise. New Zealand usually offers infamously green and slow pitches but heavy rain last month, five times the February average, has killed the grass on the Hamilton wicket and left turf manager Karl Johnson with a headache.

Zimbabwean security authorities have impounded a United States-registered aircraft that landed at the country’s main international airport with military equipment and 64 men aboard suspected to be mercenaries, Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi announced on Monday.

”From the modest interiors of their jail cells, beyond the noise of electioneering, South Africa’s 185 000 prisoners will join every other eligible South African voter next month to make their cross. Some prisoners talk to the M&G about 10 years of democracy, drugs, Thabo Mbeki and God.

The truth is out. If you are white and find the yoke of affirmative action too heavy, don’t pack for Perth. Go to the United States, the land of the free and home of the brave. It has already worked wonders for Charlize Theron, who last week joined the likes of Afronaut Mark Shuttleworth by being ”the first African” to score big on some world stage or other.